2 days ago my wife and I we managed to start talking, mostly about her life and then she turned the conversation to our relationship. For a long time she has been withdrawing from me so I take this for a good sign.

She admits that she misses him (OM) and cannot understand why, since she broke it off. As best as I can I related what I have learned here. The fact that I understand seems to have an effect. Though it may not feel like it, she says she is giving me a chance.

Then she tells me that she thinks that during our marriage she was giving more to me than I to her, In other words that I was happy and she was not. I could not contain myself anymore, I almost laughed (it was a laugh or cry moment). I decide to be completely honest and tell her exactly how I have felt. For a long time there was enough going on around us that I did not have to focus on my unhappiness. For a long time I was playing caregiver and could not focus on how I felt. For the past 6 months I have wanted to die, it has seemed like the only way for her to be happy and me to not suffer anymore.

Much to my surprise she seems to care because she asks me what my needs are. After some fumbling I tell her that I miss the emotional connection we had before and talk some about spending time together talking, sex and affection. At this point she tells me that she cannot feel anything and it scares her. I know what this means, she cannot feel anything for me. She wants to know why is it that I can give her love but she cannot return it. I remember that she wants to be more than just a housewife. I tell her that perhaps if she is afraid that if she returned that love to me she may like it and her life would continue down a path she did not intend, she would get comfortable have children and achieve the great things she has always wanted. She started to cry. She tells me that she has often felt that way. For some reason that night is the first time I have slept well. I feel that I have hit on something significant that perhaps I can build on.

Sounds like some great steps forward. I can't help but think of this verse: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

I felt that way. Then comes day 2. Yesterday.

Wife goes to class in the morning and I head to work. I start my day trying to catch MC's. 2 out of the 3 available locally seem decent. I need to call them back and ask some more questions and get my wife to talk to them (hopefully). As I finish talking to the last one I get a tap on my shoulder. It's my wife.

Long story short, something happened in class. She bawling and in a panic. I have not seen her depression reach these heights in well over a year. She wants to abandon her school plans and focus on the one thing that makes her feel good. (Politics). What happened does not remotely justify her reaction, it is depression. Quite all of the sudden I am thrust back into caregiver mode. I am not about to let her throw all of her plans away. After a couple of hours of guiding her along she finally starts doing what she has too for school, though reluctantly.

During the time we talked I found a few pieces of information, I take all of them with a grain of salt because of the emotional state she was in. She said she wanted to run away from this (school) problem even though she new she had to face it and overcome it. She says that she can see that she is lazy and not willing to work for anything anymore, she mentions, a couple of events in her life, relationships including our marriage and OM. I decide to be honest and tell her that she has always relied on saviors to make her life better without having to work for it herself, wether it was me, OM, or some important activity she could involve herself that she could use to avoid whatever was giving her trouble. All the while I'm also encouraging her to do the work she needs to do for school.

At the end of this I am glad she is feeling better but I am also feeling used. And it is making me angry. Since D-Day I've wondered what it was that he gave her that I could not. Sure they had a professional connection and he was a link into a career she was trying to restart but could that be all? It is dawning on me now that perhaps what he did was make her feel adored and important with out her having to do much to earn it. It became a very easy place for her to withdraw into when things became difficult for her in our marriage. It is also reviving fears that she will not be willing to work for our marriage. Somewhere inside me the Taker is hard at work and it is hard to fight it down.

The one thing I'm trying to keep in mind, yesterday after she began to feel better she said that she had learned alot about herself that day.

Today I'm just trying to make sense of everything.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I decide to be honest and tell her that she has always relied on saviors to make her life better without having to work for it herself, wether it was me, OM, or some important activity she could involve herself that she could use to avoid whatever was giving her trouble. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Have you red the stuff on this site about Disrespectful Judgements?

Telling her you feel used is OK. Telling her about her own motivations or needs (or feelings or thoughts) is not

I have been doing a lot of thinking. Clearly I did not read “Disrespectful Judgments” thoroughly enough. This opens up a big can of worms. In my family my father was controlling and disrespectful towards me well into my twenties. As much as I despise that behavior in the past year I have seen that I am predisposed towards the same behavior. This is complicated by my wife’s depression.

At many times during our knowing each other I have filled the caregiver role when she could not take care of things herself. As my wife has recovered from a deep depression, it seems that I have not changed my role or learned to trust her emotions. It took me a lot of time and hurt to learn that her anger and sadness was not aimed at me, it was about something in her past or I was just a convenient target at times. I learned to take it. Something I learned at this point was to not bring up things that upset her, even at cost to my own emotional well being. It is obvious to me now that this was a recipe for disaster. I never sought any help for myself to help me deal with the role I was put into or my own background.

There are things that I can see now. By persisting to be caregiver to my wife, I have actually hindered her recovery instead of letting her grow as a person. She sees me as the biggest control in her life. I am full of assumptions (DJ) about who she is, instead of seeing the person that is in front of me now. It is very likely that this contributed heavily to her EA. Although she has made a lot of progress, she is still given to angry outbursts and judgments of her own. When this happens it is easy for me to start resenting her as evidenced by my previous post. This serves as a blocker for real honest discussion between us. I need help.